The Bane of the Dominarian 10 - Faith Æthersworn
by Jono101
Summary: This is the story of Faith, Æthersworn Adept, fighting what can be the most dangerous and malevolent being in creation.


Faith sauntered through the fabric of the plane casually, she did not know why she was brought here but she knew that she had no other choice.

As soon as her feet touched the damp grass, her toes feeling the chilled dew in the grass, the early morning sun spread its warmth over her back. Regardless of this warmth feeling, a chill ran down Faith's back, a dark presence hung over the cool air.

She turned to see a cloud of smog, floating meters away from where she stood; a cloud of malevolent intention and dark desire.

Before her eyes, the cloud slowly turned into a hooded man, its face was shrouded in shadow and mystery, its identity concealed.

"Identify yourself!" Faith called, her voice was strong but also carried compassion and kindness, "Do it now, or I will have to take drastic measures; and trust me when I say: you won't like me when I'm angry."

"Why must you meddle?" The figure whispered loudly, its male voice harsh and sharp against the wind, "Why must you take a hand in things that do not concern you," The man looked up, its bright red eyes sparked through the darkness that concealed the lower half of his face for a mere second before his eyes returned to its mysterious darkness.

"Because I am not afraid of you, what is there to fear from you, Shaman?" Faith replied, her voice bleeding confidence.

To this, the hooded figure reached up and pulled the hood back, setting it over his forehead. The angle revealed a human face, casting the forehead and eyes into the shadows, eyes glowed a malignant red that was only sharpened by the gloom. "Everything," The man said maliciously, his hand raised as power built inside him, it was enveloped his hand in the same black smog that covered his form minutes ago.

Faith's instincts, her sixth sense or her precognition, triggered and told her to act quickly. Seconds later a black bolt of energy blasted from the man's hand, it missed the agile Prophetess by centimetre, a cartwheel delivered her from danger in perfect timing.

In this same cartwheel, Faith drew her blade and lunged at her foe, aiming for a killing blow in the small gap that her precognition told her existed in his armour. Her blow struck home, it bit deeply into the gap between his ribs and into his heart. "I do not fear you." She whispered whilst twisting her blade in the wound to cause pain in her would be attacker.

.

A shock ran down Faith's spine as her precognition warned her about an impending danger. The man's hand gripped the blade of her sword imbedded in his chest and slowly pulled it out, "Are you sure?" He said, a threat underlined in his tone.

Faith punched the man in the face in an attempt to loosen his grip on her blade and get free; this offered her the opportunity to dislodge her blade and jump back to a safe distance. This sudden movement of his head however made the cowl of his hood fall back behind his head, revealing his face. The man's black hair and grey blue eyes looked all too familiar to Faith, as was the scar on the man's cheekbone.

"You, but how? It can't be." Faith stuttered; her voice caught in the back of her throat. Her grip on her blade tightened dangerously as the fear built in the pit of her stomach.

"Hello, Faith." The man said, His hand finding purchase on his own sword, drawing it. This was no mere illusion or warlock, this was Vadam, the man Faith saw kill her.

.

The shade drew its blade and vanished; he appeared on Faith's left side and arced a murderous cut towards her neck. Faith was able to block the blade with her own, sensing his attack; but before she could counter with her own swing the warlock vanished again, reappearing on her right side, casting another bolt of black energy towards the Prophetess, missing her by a hairsbreadth.

This exchange repeated for the next few minutes, both Vadam and Faith lashed their blades out at their foes, only to have them blocked with equal speed and agility. But after a few minutes Faith began to notice something; her foe was speeding up.

Vadam's flash step dance reached unnatural speeds within minutes, its speed increased as time progressed; but Faith's guard began to falter as she could no longer block every assault from multiple directions completely, small wounds started to open across her body as Vadam's blade found its mark constantly, each cut getting progressively deeper. The onslaught only stopped when the Prophetess was brought to her knees, both out of pain and meditation to desperately gather enough power to defeat this dark planeswalker.

Vadam stood over Faiths kneeling form, his blade slowly and deliberately arced towards her exposed neck, only to find no target when its arc ended. Faith vanished, reappearing as far from her foe as she could muster, pushing her weak magic to its limit as she made small jumps towards the ocean; she hoped she could gather enough Blue and White mana to make it an even fight, but feared she could not make it as far as the waters edge.

.

Exhausted and drained, Faith fell to her knees on the edge of a cliff, she looked out to see the smooth ocean and she heard the calming sounds of the waves that broke on the base of the cliff below. She thought she had escaped the menace and breathed a sigh of relief.

"You remember, Sorceress, that I am also a blue mage, so coming here will not help you." A voice from behind her sounded; its superior tone and confidence bursting forth like water from a broken dam. Faith rose to her feet to face Vadam, her defiance met his confidence with equal vigour, if not more so. A silence met this stare as both planeswalkers stood speechless, looking their opponents up and down looking for a weakness. After this silence however, Faith grinned.

"Who are you?" Faith demanded, the silence broken.

"No one of consequence, as you may have guessed."

"Sorry, that question was a little inaccurate; I'd like to repeat the question: What are you? Cause you sure as hell ain't Vadam."

The auramancer stumbled back as if struck by a physical blow, flabbergasted at the Prophetess for her clarity of thought in the face of certain death. Recovered from this lapse in focus, Vadam chuckled menacingly at her statement; "You really want to know? Witch"

Shadows around the Auramancer lengthened their combined shadows drew closer and closer to Vadam's form. The Lich began to levitate, almost held aloft by the shadows themselves. His once blue-grey eyes began to shine with a bright red full of hate and malice. Vadam's outline began to distort and his surroundings darkened as he was held higher by the shadows we walked on.

"I am who he will become!" The shadow-mancer called, his voice distorted by darkness, it carried a deep overtone that sound penetrated the darkest recesses of Faith's soul.

Vadam's hand made a rapid gesture to the right, his might pulling Faith's sword from her grasp, even at this distance. Faith flung herself to recover her blade, crafted by a Stone-forge Mystic of a long doomed plane, the mightiest sword she could make before dying from Phyrexian poison, perfected and polished by years of hard work and dedication on Faiths part.

Time seemed to slow down for Faith and Vadam: Faith reached desperately for her blade whilst Vadam charged up more dark magic. Vadam cast his spell, a powerful Doom Blade, and launched it directly at the young planeswalker he faced. It glanced her arm but caused enough damage that it pushed Faith off the cliff.

.

Faith began to fall, to her it seemed like a great amount of time had passed, but for the shade and the rest of the plane, it was but mere seconds. The Prophetess' heart started to race, her mind translating and running hundreds of possible paths of survival at a rate that would dwarf that of even Jace Beleren himself, hundreds of plans ran through her mind as her body plummeted to the cold water and deadly rocks at the cliffs base.

Even in her advanced intellectual state, she knew her chances for survival were minimal at best; Faith began to clear her mind, she cast out the plans and ideas that could have led to her survival, and she began to relax her soul, accepting the possibility of Death.

Suddenly something ignited deep inside Faiths heart, a single spark of defiance broke through the barrier of defeat and made the Prophetess think twice about her course of action. Subconsciously, Faiths arm reached out in-front of her, in a vain attempt to ward off the impact of the rocks and oceans that seemed to rise to meet her.

The world around Faith began to shatter as she seemed to hit some sort of barrier, leaving only Faith and pinpoints of bright lights to remain in the black expanse. Still falling, Faith drifted into the blind eternities, she found some solace in the peaceful expanse, void of all but herself and the planes that she could see, like stars in the night sky.

Suddenly, the young planeswalker felt the presence of a great power, pulling her back into the plane she so desperately tried to escape. She rapidly fell back into the bright light, shattering the veil between realities as if it were glass. Faith saw the ground rise to meet her, the impact driving the wind from her body, pain radiating from every corner of her body.

Her vision impaired and failing, her last sight was that of a man in a robe, its crimson color seemed familiar to her but no memory took claim to this; the man was saying something but her ears betrayed her as she fell further and further out of consciousness. Finally her last sense, her vision, faded and the world turned black once more, but no stars filled the blackness, not this time.


End file.
